NBC Meet the Press host Kristen Welker devoted a chunk of her interview with socialist Zohran Mamdani on Sunday to begging him to repeat his view that Donald Trump is a "fascist" and a "despot" and a "threat to democracy." This game of Repeat Yourself isn't about eliciting answers. It's about ginning up the most negative soundbites.
Managing Editor Curtis Houck and Jorge Bonilla join the show in this Thanksgiving week to discuss how you can't call Mamdani a communist -- despite his hot talk on tape about how his goal would be "seizing the means of production" and discussing "the abolition of private property" -- but it's always fair game to compare Trump to Hitler.
The last time Welker interviewed Trump, they edited it out the president underlining that their favorite illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia was violent with his wife, that she got a restraining order.
From there, we discuss the video by Sen. Elissa Slotkin and other Democrats advising military personnel they don't have to obey illegal orders -- but they didn't have any proof of an illegal order by Trump. Jorge discusses his new term "Trumpwashing" -- that something like this video isn't newsworthy until Trump denounces it, and then what Trump said was the scandal -- that sedition is punishable by death.
Curtis says his favorite moment from the Sunday shows is where ABC This Week host Martha Raddatz gently tried to nudge Sen. Slotkin into offering proof of an illegal order from Trump, and she ends up telling this tale from former Defense Secretary Mark Esper where Trump allegedly asked about shooting Black Lives Matter protesters in the legs. They always accept these claims when it's Trump. Slotkin threw in the Nuremberg trials, and the movie A Few Good Men instead of any evidence.
Jorge noted that while the video may not meet a legal definition of “sedition”, it most certainly meets the elements of 18 USC §2387, which proscribes "attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty" by military personnel.
The whole story as it unfolded suggests that the video was meant to cause a fierce reaction from Trump -- which would explain why the media didn't touch it until Trump reacted. Now the Democrats are actually raising money on the controversy.
Enjoy the podcast video below. The audio is here.
